08 FEATURE

PRESENTED BY

ARJUN MOHAN | UPGRAD

UPGRAD: SCORING
BIG ON OPPORTUNITY
AND VIRALITY
Ed-tech companies, including upGrad have seen an exponential growth in viewership and
uptake of online education in the COVID-19 lockdown period. Arjun Mohan, CEO-India,
upGrad tells us how the brand has shifted gears to appeal to new audiences and deeper
markets by putting out communication that has gone viral

BY DIPALI BANKA

PROFILE
Arjun Mohan,
CEO- India, upGrad
started his career
with Think & Learn
Pvt Ltd, commonly
known as Byju’s,
as a teacher and
moved up the ranks
into a leadership
role. Prior to Byju’s,
Mohan drove sales
and operations at
Titan Industries and
did stints with Tata
Motors, Tata Realty
and Infrastructure
Ltd. (TRIL) and Sir
Dorabji Tata and
Allied Trusts.
Q] upGrad has possibly been at the right to be very effective. With RahoAmbitious going out on
place at the right time. Your new TVC TV, we saw almost 34% growth in the traffic to most of
‘raho ambitious’ came out just before the our assets. During this lockdown, we realized that the
COVID-19 lockdown in India. You followed it feeling of being aspirational, ambitious and skilled had
up with social media anthems. How has this only grown. So, with our ‘AagekiSoch’ anthem on social
period worked for the brand? media, we reached around 31 million people and 15
We had not anticipated the lockdown when we did million views in a week’s time.
the campaign RahoAmbitious. But lockdown or not,
MARKETING TIP the campaign objective and the whole messaging works Q] How did you change your product
really well. Historically, upGrad has been serious about offerings during this period? And which of
Take this opportunity its messaging, talking about courses, universities, etc. the courses have seen more uptake?
to ensure that your We saw that the customer over a period of time has been Immediately after COVID-19 outbreak, we noticed a
message goes across evolving. A person who wants to upskill himself may humongous increase in traffic across ed-tech platforms.
to the customer but not always be studious and serious. He may be the one But there was a lot of uncertainty among people. From
at the same time, who binge watches OTT content but is still doing his job the feedback from learners, we figured that we needed to
don’t oversell you and looking at climbing the ladder too. We realized that give them more confidence and reassurance. So we came
product the brand needed a fresh approach. Also, our medium out with courses of Rs 10,000 – ‘start a Masters’ Degree
for messaging has changed. Earlier we were just a TV with 10k’. These were regular products, which range
brand. So, we started going to a lot of OTTs and doing between the price range of Rs 2.5 and 5 lakh but instead
branded content on TVF, Arre, etc. We recently did a of paying the full amount, the learners could take up
tie-up with motivators on YouTube. So we moved to the course up to June and could opt out later if they
places where our new age customers visit and found it wished. upGrad would give certificate for undergoing

May 24> 2020 [ impactonnet.com ]

 09
PRESENTED BY

the course for that short period of time. We saw a lot of uptake
for these courses organically. Confident about the quality of
our product, I believe that once people try our products we can
increase our customers and upsell other products too.

Q] How does the online reach and views through

influencers translate into numbers eventually?
What are the key points to make it effective?
In any influencer based marketing campaign the key thing
to look at is the brand fit and the TG fit. Secondly, you need to
re-orient you message to the type that the influencer is used
to spreading. For instance, actor Radhika Apte is one of the
influencers we have got on board. She is an intelligent actress
and generally shares peppy videos with certain level of brain
power involved and hence a good fit for us. But at the same
time I cannot ask her to do a video on data science, as none
of her followers would like it. I need to re-orient it and bring
the message in a different format with affinity towards our
message. It is the whole concept of virality. If you can plug into
something that people are already talking about, half of your
work will be done by the context.

Q] Which stage has brand upGrad reached now

and what is the way forward from here?
upGrad as a brand is in its early stages. The professional
and higher learning market in India has around 100 million
consumers. We are dominantly present in metros and large
cities right now and are very popular for IT and professional
education. I want to take the brand to newer markets of
ambitious people. The aspiration levels and the desire to upskill
is way higher in smaller towns, especially tier II and III cities.
Also, the biggest advantage of online education is its reach and
ABOUT THE BRAND
the fact that the quality of product is superior, wherever it goes. Founded in early 2015, upGrad offers online programs for
I want the brand to become more mainstream. working professionals. The company has got on board
53,000 paid learners and impacted more than 500,000
Q] Your experience with Byju’s must be a great individuals globally. It is the largest online higher education
help here… company in India, based on gross revenues generated from
My beliefs and ideas have come from that experience only. the Indian market in FY18-19.
If you look at the way K-12 online education has spread, it

started with the focus in metros and key cities. We took the
brand to smaller towns and now 70% of the Byju’s sales or
the subscribers come from tier II and III cities. That is the
direction we plan to move ahead.
Q] What is your learning from Byju’s that you are
implementing here to take your brand forward?
All through my career, I have worked with brands at very
early stages of their lifecycle, focusing on kids and youth, and
taken them to mainstream. I am trying to do a similar thing
here at upGrad. I spent a lot of my initial time understanding
my core TG and the peripheral customer and how we make
our products and services attractive to this target base.
Q] Post COVID-19 and the lockdown, we are
presuming that some consumer patterns will
change. Being a marketer, how do you pre-empt
this change in your sector?
I believe this is a watershed moment for online education,
and a lot more people will understand that online education is
as good as or perhaps even better than offline education. One
of the reasons why online education did not get that hockey
stick moment is because people were not trying it. COVID-19
has forced them to do that. The idea is to counter the inherent
bias people had against online education. Also, I don’t think
that this is a one off thing. We have been seeing these things
like SARS, Ebola, Swine Flu, etc. And people will become
more adept and will start accepting online as a mainstream
opportunity now. I see this happening in e-commerce and
food too. Honestly, companies will also consider WFH as a
serious option.
FACTS
MEDIA AGENCY: STARCOM
CREATIVE & SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCY: IN-HOUSE
DIGITAL AGENCY: TATVIC
PR AGENCY: ADFACTORS PR
Q] What is one thing that brand managers should avoid doing
right now? And what is one thing that they should do in this
situation?
We should respect the fact that customers are in a very uncertain and worried
state right now. So when we can provide products or services that can make their life
easier or enjoyable, we will be accepted. At the same time, we should respect their
feelings and not try too hard to sell things. We should try giving promos but as a
brand if we try to oversell now, it may go into a bad exercise. We should talk in such a
way that our message is clear to them from their perspective so that they will consider
us in the future.
Q] The lockdown has probably worked for ed tech brands the way
demonetisation worked for a Paytm. Being there at the right time.
What are your thoughts on this?
You are right, but I will just add a caveat to it. Demonetiation did work for Paytm
and it made it viral but they destroyed it all, because they failed to see the UPI coming
in and taking away that money. So I would say that this is an opportunity for us to get
to a large number of people, but we can’t be complacent. I would rather try to do an
Alibaba when the SARS epidemic struck China and how they used that opportunity
to grow.
@ FEEDBACK dipali.banka@exchange4media.com

May 24> 2020 [ impactonnet.com ]

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